SSP Daily Digest: 8/10 (Morning Edition)

(Note: That may be my name in the by-line, but this post was written entirely by SSP Blogfather DavidNYC.)

  • AK-Sen: David Drucker reports that Lisa Murkowski has $1.8 million on-hand in her pre-primary FEC report, meaning she’s spent at least $600K (and probably more) since the end of June in her race against upstart Joe Miller (whose fundraising has been meager at best). And that’s a lot of money for Alaska.
  • AZ-Sen: John McCain’s final (or near-final) TV ad links J.D. Hayworth directly to Jack Abramoff, something his campaign has done for a while, but the first time McCain’s actually gone on the air with the attack. NWOTSOTB.
  • CO-Sen: Politico takes a good look at the backstory to that New York Times piece about Michael Bennet’s involvement in potentially questionable exotic financing deals the Denver public school system bought into during his tenure as its boss. The story was explicitly fed to NYT reporter Gretchen Morgenstern by Jeannie Kaplan, a prominent backer and fundraiser for Andrew Romanoff – a conflict the Times failed to mention in its initial writeup.
  • NV-Sen: We’ll stop telling you about all the crazy shit Sharron Angle says just as soon as we get tired of doing so – which will be never:

    • “I think we get confused a little bit. Our healthcare system is the best in the world. There’s nothing wrong with our healthcare system. Our doctors are the best,” says Angle.

    A couple other Angle items: (1) She’s pledged not to accept PAC money from companies which provide health benefits to gay partners, but of course she’s taking their cash anyway. (2) After declaring that Obama wants to “make government our God,” she’s gone and accused Harry Reid of injecting religion into the race, saying Angle was merely “discussing her religion.” Uh huh.

  • PA-Sen, PA-07, PA-08: Buncha similar stories coming out of the Keystone State today. In the senate race, Dem Joe Sestak is trying to oust Green Party candidate Mel Packer from the ballot. In the 7th CD, GOPer Pat Meehan is attempting to boot teabagger Jim Schneller from the ticket. And in the 8th CD, PoliticsPA says that indy Tom Lingenfelter’s candidacy is also being challenged, presumably by the Mike Fitzpatrick campaign, seeing as Lingenfelter was helped on to the ballot by Patrick Murphy supporters.
  • TN-Gov: The list of candidates in America who would be well-served by burnishing a John Kerry-esque profile is very, very short – and the Republican nominee for governor in Tennessee ain’t on it. So you can understand why GOPer Bill Haslam has been taking some heat for the time he’s spent vacationing in Nantucket over the years. Just call him the first wine-track Republican!
  • CO-04, NM-02: Defenders of Wildlife is pledging to help thwart Cory Gardner and Steve Pearce in their races against Reps. Betsy Markey and Harry Teague. Though the group hasn’t said how much they’ll spend this year, they threw in over a million bucks to help Markey defeat ex-Rep. Marilyn Musgrave last cycle. They didn’t get involved in NM-02 last time, but they did spend six figures on behalf of Martin Heinrich in NM-01.
  • KS-04: Ah, nothing tastier than day-old cat fud – the smell just lingers in the air, doesn’t it? The second-, third-, and fourth-place finishers in the Republican primary are all holding off on endorsing winner Mike Pompeo. Jean Schodorf, Wink Hartman, and Jim Anderson are all saying that they “haven’t had any contact with Pompeo since before election day.” Schodorf even left a congratulatory message for Pompeo, who didn’t bother calling back. He sounds like an utter dickbag, which means he’ll fit in perfectly in the GOP caucus if he wins in November.
  • MI-01: With 16 of 31 counties having completed their re-canvass, surgeon Dan Benishek claims he leads state Sen. Jason Allen by 18 votes in this ultra-tight race. Once this process is over, then the candidates can ask for a recount, while Dem state Rep. Gary McDowell does a happy dance.
  • MI-09: At a recent fundraiser for Rocky Raczkowski, Phyllis Schlafly offered these bon mots:

    • Do you know what the second-biggest demographic group that voted for Obama – obviously the blacks were the biggest demographic group. But do you all know what was the second-biggest? Unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have big brother government to be your provider.

    Rocky tried to distance himself from Schlafly’s comments, describing himself as “gender blind.” Which I guess makes him bisexual.

  • NY-23: DUIs seem to come up with depressing frequency on the campaign trail, but BUIs? No, that’s not a typo – that’s Boating Under the Influence. Yep, GOPer Matt Doheny was charged with the offense not once but twice back in 2004, and on the first occasion, he was combative enough to get handcuffed by the police.
  • OH-18: The NRCC is shopping around a poll, taken by On Message, Inc., which purportedly shows Rep. Zack Space tied with GOPer Bob Gibbs at 43 apiece. The Space campaign had an interesting response. A spokesman said: “It doesn’t square with what we know. And we’re not going to be head faked into releasing anything on our side.” Keep this quote in mind when you wonder why more Democrats haven’t released internal polls. I’m not saying this year isn’t going to be awful for us (I’m sure it will be), but there are strategic reasons to play your cards close to the vest. For instance, while an ugly, un-countered internal can be deadly for a challenger’s fundraising, someone like Space doesn’t have to be worried that donors will no longer take him seriously because of this poll.
  • TN-08: Dem Roy Herron released his first TV ad of the general election campaign, even before they finished counting the votes in the GOP primary. In the spot, he calls himself a “truck-driving, shotgun-shooting, Bible-reading, crime-fighting, family-loving coun­try boy.” NWOTSOTB.

    • 121 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 8/10 (Morning Edition)”

    1. I can’t tell if that story was serious or not. they were talking about going to Nantucket like failing to pay taxes or cheating on one’s wife with a hooker or something.

    2. This seems to be the cycle for BUIs. Remember Denny Rehberg’s

      little fiasco about a year ago. Only difference is that the GOP State Senate Majority Leader was the one who was actually BUI (he’s now being charged with 3 felony charges in connection with the incident), though Rehberg has gone out of his way to defend Barkus throughout, and most accounts say that he was drunk, too. He’d probably be in the same boat (no pun intended) as Doheny right now if he weren’t a 10-year incumbent in a red state that’s been shockingly tolerant of his “I’m just a good cowpoke” crap over the years.

    3. They’ve been running this ad during the morning news hour on network TV.  It’s the same ad they ran against Pearce when he was running for Senate last cycle.  I don’t know the size of the buy.

      Here is the Defenders press release for the ad spot: http://www.defendersactionfund…

    4. http://www.indystar.com/articl…

      I swear I will have no more respect for Daniels at all if he refuses that money, we need it. Teachers are dropping like flies and he doesn’t care. I can’t wait to get a dem back in 2012. I am no fan of Bayh but I can’t wait until he is my Governor again.  

    5. I think Haslam should be docked some points from his “campaign skill sets assessment” for saying he is a “Frog Jump Republican”, because he is certainly not rural, a farmer, or a West Tennessean. Heck, if you ask most of the people in the community of Frog Jump, they would still self-identify as Democrats. Really sounds lame for a moderate urban East Tennessee mayor to self-identify with rural conservative Stephen Fincher. This is something I’d expect out of Zack Wamp, not Haslam.

    6. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38…

      A plane believed to be carrying eight people crashed in southwest Alaska on Monday night, authorities said on Tuesday.

      It was feared that former Sen. Ted Stevens was on board the flight, but officials have not been able to confirm that, local station KTUU TV reported. The Associated Press also cited an unnamed U.S. official as saying Stevens may have been on board.

      Alaska National Guard spokesman Maj. Guy Hayes said the Guard was called to the area about 20 miles north of Dillingham at about 7 p.m. Monday after a passing aircraft saw the wreckage.

      There were possible fatalities as well as survivors, Hayes said.

    8. I hope you are banking all of sharon angle’s comments, so after the election is over we can have one post with all of them.  I would favorite that page and read it every day for months.  Please, please, please.  

    9. David and James, allow me to introduce you to one Willard Mitt Romney.

      And what’s so bad about Nantucket anyway? Half the people in Massachusetts have been there at one point or another in their lives.

    11. Reading between the lines it does now seem to be Dem strategy to stay mum on their own numbers. Not in every case I’m sure but when you consider that several articles have suggested party insiders don’t think things are quite as bad as people think it does make you wonder. That has to be based on something. The GOP are still gonna win lots of seats but these incessant polls are getting rather silly and could backfire if they don’t end up doing as well as they think. They have let the expectations game get way out of control.

    18. TEACHERS (Sarah Palin eyeroll).  He was one of two, with Cao being the other.  Shows me he’s not to worried about the primary.  Don’t know if PPP will have primary numbers.  I hope so.

      On a different note, I bet Beau Biden would be neck-and-neck with Castle or ahead given the movement towards Coon recently.  Oh well…

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